A 64-year-old farmer has become the sixth person to die from a deadly new strain of deadly bird flu in China - while 14 others are known to have contracted the H7N9 virus.

The man is the second victim of the outbreak in Zhejiang province, while the others are believed to have died in Shanghai.

Another person is being treated for flu-like symptoms authorities in Shanghai have announced. The deadly strain, previously
unknown in people, has begun to mutate into a form more likely to cause a
human pandemic, scientists say.

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A nurse attends to patients being treated on drips in a hospital in Shanghai. The city has activated an emergency response plan following four deaths of the strain of bird flu

A 48-year-old man who worked in poultry transportation in the eastern province of Jiangsu died in a hospital in the nearby city of Shanghai

A strain bird flu in China appears to have mutated so that it can spread to other animals, raising the potential for a bigger threat to people

Chinese authorities are studying the
dangerous strain, as Japan and Hong Kong have stepped up vigilance
against the virus and Vietnam has banned imports of Chinese poultry. All poultry markets in Shangai have been shut to contain the outbreak.

The H7N9 bird flu strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human but authorities in Hong Kong raised a preliminary alert and are taking precautions at their airport.

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Authorities in Shanghai have discovered the H7N9 virus in a pigeon sample taken from a traditional wholesale market, Xinhua added, believed to be the first time the virus has been discovered in a animal in China since the outbreak began.

'(China) will strengthen its leadership in combating the virus... and coordinate and deploy the entire nation's health system to combat the virus,' the Health Ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday on its website.

An official lets a dog sniff out items of possible quarantine concern at Incheon International Airport in South Korea as health authorities stepped up quarantine measures to fight against a bird flu outbreak in China

Health authorities nationwide are studying the dangerous new strain and preparing isolation units for possible new infections with H7N9 avian influenza

A worker catches chickens at a market in Nanjing, eastern China's Jiangsu province. Flu experts across the world are studying samples isolated from the patients to assess the human pandemic potential of the strain

In Hong Kong, authorities activated the preliminary 'Alert Response Level' under a preparedness plan for an influenza pandemic, which calls for close monitoring of chicken farms, vaccination, culling drills, and a suspension of imports of live birds from the mainland.

All passengers on flights in and out of Hong Kong were being asked to notify flight attendants or airport staff if they were feeling unwell.

Vietnam said it had banned poultry imports from China, blaming the risk of H7N9 for their clampdown.

Just
days after authorities in China announced they had identified cases of
H7N9, flu experts in laboratories across the world are picking through
the DNA sequence data of samples isolated from patients to assess its
severity.

Other strains of bird flu, such as H5N1, have been circulating for many years and can be transmitted from bird to bird, and bird to human, but not generally from human to human.

'The gene sequences confirm that this is an avian virus, and that it is a low pathogenic form (meaning it is likely to cause mild disease in birds),' said Wendy Barclay, a flu virologist at Britain's Imperial College London.

'But what the sequences also reveal is that there are some mammalian adapting mutations in some of the genes.'

Poultry is displayed for sale at a stall in a market, in Hanoi, Vietnam. The country has banned imports of Chinese poultry and other countries have quickly introduced procedures to try and keep the strain out

A Chinese vendor holds up a black chicken, often used in herbal soup, for sale in a poultry stall in a market in Beijing. The country reported its fourth death from H7N9 avian influenza today

This, she said, meant the H7N9 virus has already acquired some of the genetic changes it would need to mutate into a form that could be transmitted from person to person.

In Beijing, the Health Ministry said the government would swiftly communicate details of the new strain to the outside world and its own people, following complaints it had been too slow to report on the outbreak and suspicion of a cover-up.

Chinese internet users and some newspapers have questioned why it took so long for the government to announce the new cases, especially as two of the victims fell ill in February. The government has said it needed time to correctly identify the virus.

In 2003, authorities initially tried to cover up an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China and killed about 10 percent of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

While the official Xinhua news agency said it was unfair to compare SARS with H7N9, as the new bird flu virus had yet to show signs of human-to-human transmission, it did warn that the government's credibility was on the line.

'If there is anything that SARS has taught China and its government, it's that one cannot be too careful or too honest when it comes to deadly pandemics.

'The last 10 years have taught the government a lot, but it is far from enough,' it said in a commentary.